John McKay, Football Coach October 2, 1967

The Notre Dame-Southern Cal football luncheon in Los Angeleslast November had been a three-hour parade of memories, andeyelids were heavy by the time featured speaker John McKay, theformer USC and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach, was called to themike. "Congratulations, this is the longest meal since the lastsupper," said the 75-year-old McKay, prompting a roar oflaughter from the crowd.

Humor has always served McKay well. He used it to deflect thepressures that came with winning four national championships in16 years at USC and to explain why he had lost an NFL-record 26straight games as the first coach of the expansion Bucs. (Whenasked after one Tampa Bay defeat what he thought of his team'sexecution, he said, "I think it's a good idea.")

No one ever joked about McKay's coaching acumen. During histenure USC established itself as a perennial powerhouse andbecame known as Tailback U, producing Heisman Trophy winnersMike Garrett and O.J. Simpson as well as All-Americas AnthonyDavis and Ricky Bell. Many observers were surprised in 1975 whenMcKay gave up his status as a college football baron to be thecoach of Tampa Bay. "I left USC because I wanted to make somemoney--it's that simple," says McKay, who at the time of hisdeparture was earning $48,000 a year to serve as both coach andathletic director. He earned considerably more in his first yearwith the Bucs but suffered through an 0-14 season. Tampa Bay'sblunder with the No. 1 pick in the 1977 draft, selecting Bellinstead of Heisman winner and future Dallas Cowboys star TonyDorsett, made them the laughingstock of the NFL, and the Bucslost their first 12 games that fall before finishing 2-12.

"I should have seen it coming in our first year when our middlelinebackers had eight knee surgeries among them," says McKay ofhis woebegone Bucs, who--unlike the new Cleveland Browns or theplayoff-ready Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars--werelaunched in an era when expansion drafts yielded little and freeagency did not exist. "We had no talent and no way to get it,"he says. Yet McKay steadily built Tampa Bay, and in 1979 theBucs went 10-6 to win the NFC Central. It was sweet vindicationfor McKay, who stepped down as Tampa Bay coach after the 1984season.

While McKay still follows football from his home in Tampa andkeeps up with former players like Garrett and Lynn Swann, thestrategist known as the Silver Fox doesn't meddle in thebusiness of son Rich, 40, the Bucs' current G.M. "He gives meadvice these days," John says of his son. Though he still cracksjokes at the occasional banquet, McKay, who with wife Corky hasnine grandchildren, spends the majority of his time answering toPoppy. "It's great," he says. "I can't ever remember having ninebest buddies."

--John O'Keefe

COLOR PHOTO: BOB GOMEL (COVER)COLOR PHOTO: ELIOT J. SCHECHTER

Humor served McKay well, but no one ever joked about his coachingacumen.